Social media, privacidade e dados online
: implicações para a comunicação e marketing

  • Maria Madalena Faria e Melo de Almeida Bello (Student)

Student thesis: Master's Thesis

Abstract

The increasing use of social networks and their sustained growth have transformed these platforms into businesses, not only associated with leisure and entertainment, but also with the dynamics of exploitation, profit and misuse of personal data. This dissertation investigates these dynamics in the context of the marketing and brands’ industries, as well as their impact on communication, privacy and online behavior, from the perspective of young adults. This group is composed by those who most navigate in the digital world and, thus, are the most affected by all these processes and transformations. The main problems that are identified are the emerging digital marketing and the excessive personalization of content and advertising, the (lack of) privacy and the growing online surveillance, the Big Data business, the power of algorithms and the digital labor, associated with monetary profit obtained by brands from users and their online data.In this investigation, a quantitative method was used, through the distribution of a survey,applied to female and male young adults, aged between 18 to 40 years old, with a sample of 127 valid participants. The results suggest that young adults look at online privacy as a lost cause, something that virtually no longer exists, recognizing the digital surveillance they are subjected to daily and being aware that they control little or nothing where, how and by whom their personal data online is used. However, despite this distrust, this age group continues to be quite active in social media. In addition, the saturation they have in relation to the online presence of brands, as well as the number of ads and advertising they see is salient. Despite being aware of terms such as Big Data and echo chambers/filter bubbles, young adults do not understand very well how these happen and the impact they have in their decisions, choices and opinions.
Date of Award11 Mar 2021
Original languagePortuguese
Awarding Institution
  • Universidade Católica Portuguesa
SupervisorAna Jorge (Supervisor)

Keywords

  • Marketing
  • Social media
  • Privacy
  • Online data
  • Young adults

Designation

  • Mestrado em Ciências da Comunicação

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